The choices for hundreds of Brits with education visas expiring between the end of the visa amnesty and xmas/NY seems to be:

- overstay and pray the amnesty gets extended

- get a job, in a shrinking economy, even if you already have a business overseas or income from investments that you're choosing to spend and invest here

- start a gofundme for an elite visa

- start a gofundme just to be able to exit and reenter the country (and cover the therapy costs of recovering from potentially a month in quarantine)

- switch to Volunteer Visa (which a senior IO is advising me not to try)

- abandon your current study plan and the 3 months of classes you're still owed, and enrol at a recognised university on an MBA or other degree that is taught in English, which isn't going to be cheap and won't leave you any time to learn Thai

- ejection into the pandemic, xmas in lockdown back home and don't see loved ones here for a long time. Help...

I had Dengue Fever at the time, with test result. I doubt airing any of this will help my cause but at least it's off my chest

this time last year I was detained and deported on arrival on a hunch that I was probably working illegally and abusing tourist status when I was just a wannabe tourist avoiding the rain and sitting waiting for dry season in a condo I purchased earlier the same year.

really messed up situation when intentional overstay is on the table of options just to not go raving mad alone in a hotel cell for xmas and at least have my gf, cat and friends around

different advice each day leans me to 1 path and then another, but ultimately I'm still a rabbit frozen in the headlights at the moment

especially if we've been abandoned by the British government - rumours abound that our embassy is not issuing letters to ask for even a short extension of stay to get past xmas and NY

@Jim *******

yeah still praying that when they see how many farang will have to leave and decide not to return because of the costs, lost sanity from quarantine time, and plain resentment for being made to do it, and consider the effect that will have on an already wounded economy, something might give... but clock ticking for me, not really any time to wait and see on that

@Jim *******

good to know, thx

@Jim *******

they're certainly not gonna give me one from inside the country on an Ed visa hehe

@Jim *******

ah ok. There's a new longer version of the tourist visa that can be 9 or possibly 12 months I think (to make the cost of quarantine at least buy more time here), but maybe only certain countries can get that, idk